At 01:30 PM 8/21/98 -0600, John W Burgeson wrote:
>Glenn Glenn Glenn! Oh my. Your logic is NOT tight!
>
>Can you not see that option 1 has many levels?
>
>You say "He is willing and able. Thus it is a true/historical message."
>
>The two sentences do not necessarily hang together.
>Let me delineate just two of the levels:
>
>1. He is willing and able.
> 1a. He does it to 20th century historical standards.
> 1b. He does it to 5th century (BC) parable standards
>
>(I think Genesis 1-11 was written about 500 BC -- I may well be off by a
>few
>hundred years or so). It is highly unlikely that the human author,
>writing, as we believe, under God's guidance, had any idea of 20th
>century standards. His job, as he saw it, was to convey theological
>truths to the people of his time (and ours to, as it turned out).
So, this would imply that God had no control over the writer and what he
wrote. To me this would then further imply that inspiration is meaningless
drivel since God can't have any real input to what is said.
So, why did God have no control? Is God not powerful enough to have the
writer tell us what he wants? No, I don't think that is the case.
Does God not have the foreknowledge to know that the Creation/evolution
area would become a big problem for 19th century people and those born
after? Sure God had to foreknow this. So, since the 5th century BC (or
earlier in my opinion) writer didn't care about what the real history was,
why would God NOT then choose the better course to give a simplified but
historically TRUE account? Afterall, the early writer by your own admission
didn't really care and modern man does. God could saved us all this trouble
by merely telling the true history the first time. (sounds like an analogy
to a modern current event)
>
>The messages of Genesis 1-11 are theological -- not historical (IMHO).
>
>The ESSENTIAL messages of Genesis 1-11 are theological, not historical.
>(more than my own opinion).
>
>Would you agree?
So what is the theological meaning of Genesis 11:20 "And Reu lived two and
thirty years, and begat Serug:"
I might also ask, what is the source for your theological meaning? And how
can you be sure that your theological meaning is THE theological meaning
that God intended? I personally can't see any theological meaning. I can
see some historical meaning however. And if it is historical meaning, then
it is either true history or fabricated history.
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm